Speculation of Coronavirus origins grows

There are many theories on how the COVID-19 virus started a pandemic around the world. And while it is also referred to as the Coronavirus, it still has the same effect. This deadly disease has a rising death toll that has everyone concerned. Especially on health care workers and their loved ones.

But how did it start? And where did it come from?

No one seems to know exactly. But there are many theories. Some are bizarre and some border on conspiracy theory. That’s what we will explore in this article.

No experts really know for certain how the COVID-19 virus started, how it will end, or how it will spread.

We, on the other hand, have a few theories and a few answers to present to you.

The first theory, which comes from a well-renowned scientist, is the most interesting.

Ground zero for the virus seems to come from Wuhan China, but even this theory is part speculation and part truth.

The true part of the story is that a meteor was spotted burning through the atmosphere on Oct 11, 2019. This was over Songyuan City. It was a bright fireball in the northeast of China that lit up the sky. This date would coincide with the timeline of when the virus would have started, but the stories get a little unrealistic after that.

This is because it seems that local reports from the Chinese news claim an alien from the meteor is responsible for bringing the deadly disease to earth. Of course, this cannot be proven, but there seems to be a bit of a panic that can’t be pacified.

Chandra Wickramasinghe, an astrobiologist, is leading the pack on new theories. He is a mathematician by trade but also an astronomer. Hailing from Sri Lanka, Chandra Wickramasinghe theorizes about everything in the sky that comes to earth has an impact.

And if you don’t think this is true, here’s an online quote from Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe:

“We believe infectious agents are prevalent in space, carried on comets, and can fall towards Earth through the troposphere. These, we think, can and have in the past gone on to bring about human disease epidemics.”

In case you didn’t know, an astrobiologist studies life throughout the universe. It’s an amazing field that cannot quite be explained.And whether the virus came from outer space or not, Chandra Wickramasinghe goes on to explain that the prevailing winds account for the widespread outbreak of the disease.

Now let’s look at the second theory for the Corona Virus outbreak.

Many people think bats in Wuhan China are to blame. It’s possible, but again, let’s look at the facts.

Bats have a reputation from horror movies that paint a picture of them as predators. But many bats only eat fruit, nectar, and insects. A few species prey on small mammals but that is very rare. And bats aren’t the only ones to be blamed.

Pangolins are anteaters originating in China and are prized for their scales. While pangolins curl up in a ball to hide from their predators, they are no match for smugglers. They are transported across borders to be deprived of their precious scales. These prized scales serve a multitude of purposes in traditional Chinese medicine. Although it is illegal, many poachers travel and take the animals across international borders.

The theory from Chinese scientists is that this anteater, who usually lives in the wilds of China, started the virus. This brings us to our last theory of how the COVID-19 virus started.

Here’s the third theory:

Animal to animal contact may have started the COVID-19 virus. It isn’t really sure to say, because scientists are still baffled. They are also investigating the Wuhan Animal Market as a possible place where the virus started.

The Wuhan Animal Market is a wet market where people can buy both live and dead animals. In other words, you can buy a live pig, snake, dog, or cat. But you can also buy meats for dinner. This is not a good mix.

In fact, the Wuhan Animal Market was suspected of starting the SARS outbreak in 2003. This is because the stalls between live and dead animals are so closely crowded in the stalls - there is no room for sanitation.

The Wildlife Conservation Society said this about the Wuhan Animal Market in a statement:

"Poorly regulated, live-animal markets mixed with illegal wildlife trade offer a unique opportunity for viruses to spill over from wildlife hosts into the human population."

Scientists and doctors are still baffled.

No one has any definitive answers yet. The virus seems to pass from human to human and also from animals to humans. Or from humans to animals.

But there is no need to worry all of the time.

Here are a few things you can do to protect yourself:

Stay at home if you can.

Stay six feet away from people if you are able. Even your loved ones.

Wear a mask if you want to keep from coughing on people.

Don’t buy into the fact that a mask protects you from getting the virus. It really only protects you from spreading the virus.

Keep washing your hands as often as possible.

And here’s why washing hands is so effective:

This is advice from Dr. Petra Klepac Ph.D., an assistant professor of Infectious Disease Modelling at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

“We were looking for systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and pooling the results from these studies,” she says.

“One review, published in 2017, found significant effects from handwashing, compared with nonsignificant effects from face-mask use.”

Dr. Klepac Ph.D., and her colleagues dove into the highest qualitymedical data available, gathered from a scientific study. And with the clinical diagnosis, they figured out something. By using a control group (who didn’t increase their handwashing) the scientists discovered that if a person washed their hands five to 10 times more than usual, “that would reduce your risk by a quarter.”

On a final note, Florence Nightingale, a nurse from Florence, Italy, taught many people to wash their hands during the Crimean War in the 1800s. This is where she served as a nurse who healed many people by practicing simple hygiene, like washing your hands.

The lesson here? Wash your hand as many times as you can during the day and your risk for the COVID-19 virus will go down significantly.